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Dear Yuletide Letter (finally)
Hello yuletide people! Sorry this is a bit late - life happened (specifically an election on top of a post-tropical cyclone) so I haven't had much time to sit and think about fandom lately. Hopefully, if you got my request, you've looked back in this tag, and my journal, and have a pretty good idea of what writing for me will involve, but I thought I ought to put up a proper letter anyway!
First, the general stuff: I am not a picky person, I like all kinds of fanfic and all kinds of pairings and moresomes and genres and kinks and experimental narrative styles and all kinds of stories. If it's not something I specifically mentioned as not wanting, I will probably love it! I love crossovers - even if I don't know all the fandoms - so if you're inspired along those lines, go wild - and I enjoy strange AUs, especially for small fandoms, so that would be fine too! The old list of narrative kinks still applies, and while I will probably be throwing out a bunch of ideas and prompts in the rest of this letter, don't feel obligated to use any of them; any story will be great.
As is also traditional, I will probably be away from the internet a lot in the week after reveals; I will try to feedback as soon as I can, but if my initial response is late or overly terse, it's not about your story, it's about my limited connection time, I promise.
Onto specific fandoms! I decided to go for four different media this time: video game, movie, song, book. But don't worry - they're all fairly easy to pick up and none of them have a lot of canon, so if our matched fandom is puzzling you, you're welcome to try one of the others.
1. Commander Keen
I really just want fic in this fandom! Something about Princess Lindsey, something about how Billy is at school or at home, or the McMire family at home, or something that takes one of the worlds from the games and fleshes it out more (especially the Shikadi - they're adorable - or the janitor from the secret temple in the Shadowlands), or a crossover where Billy runs across characters from your fandom of choice - really, anything, just go for it. (I don't particularly want porn for this fandom but if you think you can do it, go for it, although if you're using Billy please age him up to at least fifteen or so.)
Commander Keen was a series of PC platform sidescroller video games put out by id Software in the early 1990s. Several of the games were released shareware, so they were readily available. Basically, if you were the sort of kid in the early '90s who had a PC instead of a Nintendo or a Sega, Commander Keen was the video game hero you bonded with instead of Mario or Sonic or whoever.
Commander Keen (and don't call him Captain!) was the pseudonym of eight-year-old boy genius Billy Blaze, who build himself a spaceship out of old tin cans and other trash, designed his own stun gun and a wrist computer that plays Pong, and goes around exploring the galaxy and defeating evil invasions. Usually, the evil invasions end up being masterminded by Mortimer McMire, a schoolmate of his who is just one IQ point smarter (and also evil.) He also uses a pogo stick (which he looted from a Martian temple in the first game) and he always carries a book to read, just in case the player stops pressing buttons and he gets bored.
The games are really adorable, they have just enough story to keep you interested, and the gameplay is great (I could never play any of the classic console platformers because the controls were just so useless compared to Keen).
Commander Keen: Defender of Earth is a pretty good resource for the fandom, including downloads of the shareware games, 1 and 4. Those are the two I know best, so don't feel like you have to play through all seven-and-a-half of them, although they're almost all available through Steam now, if you want to.
So basically I would like any fanfic at all for this series? I think I mostly covered that in my request - the worldbuilding and story we get are just enough of an outline to make a great start for writing fic, and anything you choose to expand on or extrapolate would make me happy. Even if you just novelize a little bit of action in one of the games, I will be happy.
I would also adore crossovers for this fandom, by the way. If you happen to know Young Wizards fandom, you should note that I ship Billy/Dairine - but Commander Keen running into any characters of your choice while he's out exploring would be great.
2. Snarkout Boys
I would love a story that is about the development of the Walter/Winston/Rat relationship (especially if it ends up queer, one way or another); anything about Rat in fact, or Rat's family; anything about Tintown or Lower North Aufzoo Street or Baconburg as a place; or about Hi-Fis or Winston's car; anything that brings in elements from elsewhere in Pinkwater canon; any crossover or AU or futurefic... basically I think you get the idea.
This is another one where I suspect my prompt pretty much covers it! Yes. Pinkwaterverse: so amazing, all the time, any Snarkout Boys (or let's be honest here, any Pinkwater at all) will make me so very happy.
For people unfamiliar with the glory that is this fandom: the Snarkout Boys, Walter and Winston, are two high school boys living in the Midwestern city of Baconburg in the late 1970s who sneak out to go to late-night double-features of old and/or bad movies at the Snark Theater. There, they meet Rat, a girl from a neighboring high school, who introduces them to some of the even weirder corners of Baconburg's society and populace; in The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death they rescue Rat's Uncle Flipping (with the help of Winston's Uncle Gorilla and Captain Shep Nesterman, the Chicken Man) from the clutches of a mad scientist and his orangutan hechmen; in The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror they fight emo werewolves with the help of a delusional Sherlock Holmes impersonator and some beatnik poets.
Like all Pinkwater books, they celebrate the value of weirdness and treat the concept of "normal" with all the disdain it deserves. If this seems like the kind of thing that interests you, they are among the easier of Pinkwater's back catalog to acquire, and you can also get free legal downloads of the audiobooks via the Pinkwater Audio Archive.
As for what to write: as always, crossovers would be great (I would love something about Rat's Addams relatives, for example. Or a Young Wizards crossover. Or a Dresden Files crossover where Demonreach decides to visit Lake Mishagoo. ..or, well, you get the idea.) And weird AUs! And anything about any character or concept in these books! Re: the Walter/Winston/Rat relationship: My ideas about the future of this relationship, if you're curious, are outlined here, but you are welcome to go in a different direction! Just, if you pair up any given two of them, please don't exclude or demonize the third - they come as a triad, okay, regardless of who is being romantic with whom.
3. Citizen Kane
Jedediah Leland
What I really really need in this fandom is the story of Leland and Kane's epic tragic gay love affair, but I'm pretty sure *I* couldn't write it, so if you think you can't either, I don't blame you one bit. I would love anything at all about Leland, really. Backstory, his POV on Kane (tragic love affair or not), any Kane/Leland at all, something about the part of his life that has nothing to do with Kane at all, a PWP with an OC or with one of Kane's other associates... and if you want to write an AU or crackfic for this fandom, newspapermen in space or coffeeshops or A/B/ω or wingfic or whatever, I would also be beyond delighted with that. (I really cannot see Leland as explicitly 100% straight though, so while het fic is fine, can you at least leave open the possibility that he's flexible?)
I have been threatening to request this for Yuletide for years and when I had an empty slot and saw that this had no requests and Jedediah nominated, I couldn't resist.
...but um, I haven't rewatched the movie for awhile, so this is going to be slightly vague, sorry.
Citizen Kane is the classic movie about the tragedy of spending your life desperately trying to be someone you aren't. I think this is usually read as being about class - Kane was raised poor, and gets rich quickly, and tries really hard to repress his past - but watching the movie now, it's impossible to not also read it as Kane trying desperately to be heterosexual even though he's not. This is pointed up partly by his total inability to have functional relationships with women, but mostly pointed up by his old school friend Jedediah Leland, who takes the opposite path, refuses to hide who he is, breaks up with Kane over it, is much happier, and is given a lot of markers that (at least in a 1940s context) read as pretty darn gay. I'm 99% sure that if this movie was made today, the gay stuff would be explicit.
So what I really want is a story that brings out that part of the story. If you're not comfortable writing a story about early twentieth century queer cultures, I don't blame you - why do you think I haven't written this yet? -![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
cap_chronism has some excellent research resources up about writing slash in that period (some locked, so you might have to join the community.) Alternatively, I really would love an out-of period AU for this, preferably one where Kane and Leland get to live happily ever after together. (Or, honestly, an in-period AU where Kane and Leland get to live happily ever after together.)
Other options: I'd love an extended scene with Leland and one of Kane's women, or something that is about Intrepid Reporters Doing Journalism, or any of the things I suggested above.
(I don't have any online download resources for this, sorry, but if your local public library can't get you a copy, then your local public library is in serious trouble.)
4. Jonathan Coulton - I'm Your Moon
I'm Your Moon
This is the song I listen to on repeat when I get all angsty about how I'm not heterosexual enough to be straight and how I'm not gay enough to be queer. Can I have a fic about how the characters in this song, and their relationship, keep getting excluded from all your neat little boxes, and don't give a damn about it, because they know who they are and they have each other and will always be each other's moon? (It doesn't have to be explicitly about queerness, making it about planets and moons and astronomy is fine, as long as there's no Neil deGrasse Tyson bashing.)
Canon is three minutes long and free to download. I'm not even going to summarize, just, if you don't already know this song, your life has been deprived of richness, here, download and listen (or at least read the lyrics.)
Please don't get intimidated about trying to make some great statement about queerness and identity - I mean, I certainly will be happy if you do! - but if you just write about the relationship as outlined in the song, I will be happy. Just, I meant it about the Neil deGrasse Tyson bashing - a) nobody is allowed to bash Neil deGrasse Tyson, and b) he is, after all, right - by any usefully restricted definition of "planet", Pluto is not one. One of the things I like about this song is that it's not about how Pluto ought to be a planet - it's about how Pluto and Charon are the ones out there in the black, and nobody gets to define what that means except them.
So if you're somebody who feels personally betrayed about Pluto being de-planeted, maybe just try to avoid that question? *grin*
As for things to write: It doesn't have to be *about* Pluto&Charon, as long as it includes their relationship. If you want to write about anthropomorphized planets that would be great! Bring in the rest of the solar system, planets and asteroids and dwarf planets and KBOs and anthro space vehicles, whatever. Is Eris trying to stir up trouble again? Are the denizens of the outer solar system throwing a goodbye party for the Voyagers? Is Neptune trying to agitate to get Pluto back in the planets club, and does Pluto care?
If you want to borrow a system of intelligent planets or planetary avatars from another fandom (Mogo? The Luminaries from Dogsbody? Sailor scouts? Guardians?) that would be yay! If you want to write me Pluto/Charon kidfic about Nix and Hydra and the others and raising kids in a nontraditional family, that would be amazing. If you want to do a human!AU that would also be great! If you want to write about original characters who are just living out the relationship from the song, that would also be great! Or maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson got a little bit depressed about all the hate, and Pluto and Charon wrote him fanmail to cheer him up, and now they are pen pals!
If you are a little shaky on the science end of things, I don't really care. :D
Essentially: I am not picky when it comes to yuletide stories.
First, the general stuff: I am not a picky person, I like all kinds of fanfic and all kinds of pairings and moresomes and genres and kinks and experimental narrative styles and all kinds of stories. If it's not something I specifically mentioned as not wanting, I will probably love it! I love crossovers - even if I don't know all the fandoms - so if you're inspired along those lines, go wild - and I enjoy strange AUs, especially for small fandoms, so that would be fine too! The old list of narrative kinks still applies, and while I will probably be throwing out a bunch of ideas and prompts in the rest of this letter, don't feel obligated to use any of them; any story will be great.
As is also traditional, I will probably be away from the internet a lot in the week after reveals; I will try to feedback as soon as I can, but if my initial response is late or overly terse, it's not about your story, it's about my limited connection time, I promise.
Onto specific fandoms! I decided to go for four different media this time: video game, movie, song, book. But don't worry - they're all fairly easy to pick up and none of them have a lot of canon, so if our matched fandom is puzzling you, you're welcome to try one of the others.
1. Commander Keen
I really just want fic in this fandom! Something about Princess Lindsey, something about how Billy is at school or at home, or the McMire family at home, or something that takes one of the worlds from the games and fleshes it out more (especially the Shikadi - they're adorable - or the janitor from the secret temple in the Shadowlands), or a crossover where Billy runs across characters from your fandom of choice - really, anything, just go for it. (I don't particularly want porn for this fandom but if you think you can do it, go for it, although if you're using Billy please age him up to at least fifteen or so.)
Commander Keen was a series of PC platform sidescroller video games put out by id Software in the early 1990s. Several of the games were released shareware, so they were readily available. Basically, if you were the sort of kid in the early '90s who had a PC instead of a Nintendo or a Sega, Commander Keen was the video game hero you bonded with instead of Mario or Sonic or whoever.
Commander Keen (and don't call him Captain!) was the pseudonym of eight-year-old boy genius Billy Blaze, who build himself a spaceship out of old tin cans and other trash, designed his own stun gun and a wrist computer that plays Pong, and goes around exploring the galaxy and defeating evil invasions. Usually, the evil invasions end up being masterminded by Mortimer McMire, a schoolmate of his who is just one IQ point smarter (and also evil.) He also uses a pogo stick (which he looted from a Martian temple in the first game) and he always carries a book to read, just in case the player stops pressing buttons and he gets bored.
The games are really adorable, they have just enough story to keep you interested, and the gameplay is great (I could never play any of the classic console platformers because the controls were just so useless compared to Keen).
Commander Keen: Defender of Earth is a pretty good resource for the fandom, including downloads of the shareware games, 1 and 4. Those are the two I know best, so don't feel like you have to play through all seven-and-a-half of them, although they're almost all available through Steam now, if you want to.
So basically I would like any fanfic at all for this series? I think I mostly covered that in my request - the worldbuilding and story we get are just enough of an outline to make a great start for writing fic, and anything you choose to expand on or extrapolate would make me happy. Even if you just novelize a little bit of action in one of the games, I will be happy.
I would also adore crossovers for this fandom, by the way. If you happen to know Young Wizards fandom, you should note that I ship Billy/Dairine - but Commander Keen running into any characters of your choice while he's out exploring would be great.
2. Snarkout Boys
I would love a story that is about the development of the Walter/Winston/Rat relationship (especially if it ends up queer, one way or another); anything about Rat in fact, or Rat's family; anything about Tintown or Lower North Aufzoo Street or Baconburg as a place; or about Hi-Fis or Winston's car; anything that brings in elements from elsewhere in Pinkwater canon; any crossover or AU or futurefic... basically I think you get the idea.
This is another one where I suspect my prompt pretty much covers it! Yes. Pinkwaterverse: so amazing, all the time, any Snarkout Boys (or let's be honest here, any Pinkwater at all) will make me so very happy.
For people unfamiliar with the glory that is this fandom: the Snarkout Boys, Walter and Winston, are two high school boys living in the Midwestern city of Baconburg in the late 1970s who sneak out to go to late-night double-features of old and/or bad movies at the Snark Theater. There, they meet Rat, a girl from a neighboring high school, who introduces them to some of the even weirder corners of Baconburg's society and populace; in The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death they rescue Rat's Uncle Flipping (with the help of Winston's Uncle Gorilla and Captain Shep Nesterman, the Chicken Man) from the clutches of a mad scientist and his orangutan hechmen; in The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror they fight emo werewolves with the help of a delusional Sherlock Holmes impersonator and some beatnik poets.
Like all Pinkwater books, they celebrate the value of weirdness and treat the concept of "normal" with all the disdain it deserves. If this seems like the kind of thing that interests you, they are among the easier of Pinkwater's back catalog to acquire, and you can also get free legal downloads of the audiobooks via the Pinkwater Audio Archive.
As for what to write: as always, crossovers would be great (I would love something about Rat's Addams relatives, for example. Or a Young Wizards crossover. Or a Dresden Files crossover where Demonreach decides to visit Lake Mishagoo. ..or, well, you get the idea.) And weird AUs! And anything about any character or concept in these books! Re: the Walter/Winston/Rat relationship: My ideas about the future of this relationship, if you're curious, are outlined here, but you are welcome to go in a different direction! Just, if you pair up any given two of them, please don't exclude or demonize the third - they come as a triad, okay, regardless of who is being romantic with whom.
3. Citizen Kane
Jedediah Leland
What I really really need in this fandom is the story of Leland and Kane's epic tragic gay love affair, but I'm pretty sure *I* couldn't write it, so if you think you can't either, I don't blame you one bit. I would love anything at all about Leland, really. Backstory, his POV on Kane (tragic love affair or not), any Kane/Leland at all, something about the part of his life that has nothing to do with Kane at all, a PWP with an OC or with one of Kane's other associates... and if you want to write an AU or crackfic for this fandom, newspapermen in space or coffeeshops or A/B/ω or wingfic or whatever, I would also be beyond delighted with that. (I really cannot see Leland as explicitly 100% straight though, so while het fic is fine, can you at least leave open the possibility that he's flexible?)
I have been threatening to request this for Yuletide for years and when I had an empty slot and saw that this had no requests and Jedediah nominated, I couldn't resist.
...but um, I haven't rewatched the movie for awhile, so this is going to be slightly vague, sorry.
Citizen Kane is the classic movie about the tragedy of spending your life desperately trying to be someone you aren't. I think this is usually read as being about class - Kane was raised poor, and gets rich quickly, and tries really hard to repress his past - but watching the movie now, it's impossible to not also read it as Kane trying desperately to be heterosexual even though he's not. This is pointed up partly by his total inability to have functional relationships with women, but mostly pointed up by his old school friend Jedediah Leland, who takes the opposite path, refuses to hide who he is, breaks up with Kane over it, is much happier, and is given a lot of markers that (at least in a 1940s context) read as pretty darn gay. I'm 99% sure that if this movie was made today, the gay stuff would be explicit.
So what I really want is a story that brings out that part of the story. If you're not comfortable writing a story about early twentieth century queer cultures, I don't blame you - why do you think I haven't written this yet? -
cap_chronism has some excellent research resources up about writing slash in that period (some locked, so you might have to join the community.) Alternatively, I really would love an out-of period AU for this, preferably one where Kane and Leland get to live happily ever after together. (Or, honestly, an in-period AU where Kane and Leland get to live happily ever after together.)Other options: I'd love an extended scene with Leland and one of Kane's women, or something that is about Intrepid Reporters Doing Journalism, or any of the things I suggested above.
(I don't have any online download resources for this, sorry, but if your local public library can't get you a copy, then your local public library is in serious trouble.)
4. Jonathan Coulton - I'm Your Moon
I'm Your Moon
This is the song I listen to on repeat when I get all angsty about how I'm not heterosexual enough to be straight and how I'm not gay enough to be queer. Can I have a fic about how the characters in this song, and their relationship, keep getting excluded from all your neat little boxes, and don't give a damn about it, because they know who they are and they have each other and will always be each other's moon? (It doesn't have to be explicitly about queerness, making it about planets and moons and astronomy is fine, as long as there's no Neil deGrasse Tyson bashing.)
Canon is three minutes long and free to download. I'm not even going to summarize, just, if you don't already know this song, your life has been deprived of richness, here, download and listen (or at least read the lyrics.)
Please don't get intimidated about trying to make some great statement about queerness and identity - I mean, I certainly will be happy if you do! - but if you just write about the relationship as outlined in the song, I will be happy. Just, I meant it about the Neil deGrasse Tyson bashing - a) nobody is allowed to bash Neil deGrasse Tyson, and b) he is, after all, right - by any usefully restricted definition of "planet", Pluto is not one. One of the things I like about this song is that it's not about how Pluto ought to be a planet - it's about how Pluto and Charon are the ones out there in the black, and nobody gets to define what that means except them.
So if you're somebody who feels personally betrayed about Pluto being de-planeted, maybe just try to avoid that question? *grin*
As for things to write: It doesn't have to be *about* Pluto&Charon, as long as it includes their relationship. If you want to write about anthropomorphized planets that would be great! Bring in the rest of the solar system, planets and asteroids and dwarf planets and KBOs and anthro space vehicles, whatever. Is Eris trying to stir up trouble again? Are the denizens of the outer solar system throwing a goodbye party for the Voyagers? Is Neptune trying to agitate to get Pluto back in the planets club, and does Pluto care?
If you want to borrow a system of intelligent planets or planetary avatars from another fandom (Mogo? The Luminaries from Dogsbody? Sailor scouts? Guardians?) that would be yay! If you want to write me Pluto/Charon kidfic about Nix and Hydra and the others and raising kids in a nontraditional family, that would be amazing. If you want to do a human!AU that would also be great! If you want to write about original characters who are just living out the relationship from the song, that would also be great! Or maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson got a little bit depressed about all the hate, and Pluto and Charon wrote him fanmail to cheer him up, and now they are pen pals!
If you are a little shaky on the science end of things, I don't really care. :D
Essentially: I am not picky when it comes to yuletide stories.